


One Month Later

by existentialspace



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 15:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19832998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/existentialspace/pseuds/existentialspace
Summary: One month after the events of the Battle of Starcourt and after El and Will were taken away to the lab, the people of Hawkins struggle to move on.





	One Month Later

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before season 3 came out, so it was basically a prediction fic. I basically got nothing right except the Byers moving, but I thought it was a nice little piece so I figured I'd put it here! Thanks!

September 1985   
  
A wide shot pans down on an empty Byers house. Jonathan stands next to the car, door open, watching while Joyce struggles to shove one last suitcase into the trailer attached to their car. He checks his watch.    
  
“Mom,” he says, not out of impatience, but as a way of checking up on her. In the back of his mind, he knows she does it to keep herself busy. To forget about Starcourt and Will and El for a fraction of a second.   
  
“Just a second! Just a second!” She holds up a hand and then mutters: “Where are they… ah! Found them!” She stands up, closing the trunk and tossing the keys she was searching for to Jonathan.    
  
“Seriously mom? Again?” Jonathan says with a sad smile. Yes, her behavior wasn’t ideal. It was scary, even. But at least she was out of bed again. He slides into the driver’s seat and starts the car.   
  
Joyce looks back at the house one last time, her brow creased. After a long second, she takes a seat next to her son. “What if he comes back?”   
  
A quick dark shot of the inside of the lab. Lights are flashing. A voice screams: “MOM!”   
  
Jonathan blinks. “What?”   
  
“I mean- Wh-what is he escapes those, those people? And he comes back and we aren’t here to protect him?”   
  
Another quick pan of the lab. A shot of a heart rate monitor going off the charts. The back of a head covered in wires. A tattoo,  _ 012,  _ on someone’s wrist.   
  
“We’re going to find him. This guy... Murray? He seems psycho but he knows what he’s doing.”   
  
“I don’t know, Jonathan. What if we’re doing the wrong thing? They took El too, and she’s- well, Jane.”   
  
El is in the bathtub again. She pounds on the side, trying to claw her way out. Dr. Brenner watches, unflinching.   
  
“We’ll never know unless we try. I know it isn’t easy but this is our best shot. Leaving Hawkins.”   
  
Joyce puts her head in her hands. “I guess you’re right. I just have this feeling.”   
  
Jonathan shifts the car into gear. “Me too, Mom. Me too.”   
  
The camera pulls out as the Byers drive away from their house.    
  
Shot of the basement of the Wheeler home. Panning over the D&D table, we see that the game pieces have been replaced by missing posters for El and Will, maps of Hawkins lab, and other assorted items, including Lucas’s wrist rocket. A hand reaches across the shot, grabbing one of the maps. It’s Mike.   
  
“Where are the markers?” He whispers, and Dustin, Lucas, and Max, also around the table, scurry to look for one.    
  
“Got it,” Dustin says, handing a sharpie to Mike, who begins to draw what seems like frenzied lines on the paper.   
  
“If Will’s mom says she and the chief came in through this part of the fence-“ he circles a portion of the map, “and you saw an entrance right...” he holds the paper out to Lucas, who points to a spot. Mike circles. “Then that means it’s only around 50 feet or so from the fence to the entrance. Maybe we could-“   
  
“Mike,” Max interjects gently. “We want to find them as bad as you do. But school starts tomorrow and we’ve been at this since last night. We need to rest.  _ You _ need to rest.”   
  
Mike looks up at her and sighs. He crumples the map in his hands. “It’s useless anyway.”    
  
Lucas scoffs. “Bullshit. We’re going to find them. We’re the only people that care now that the chief and Ms. Byers are gone.” He pauses, and his resolve thickens. “Mike, we’re going to get our friends back. We just need to be more careful about how we do it. We only have one shot, so we can’t be stupid about it.”    
  
“Exactly. If we just run up there with nothing but Lucas’s wrist rocket and Steve’s spiked bat, we’re gonna lose. But if we take some time, we can get them back from those sons of bitches.” Dustin says.   
  
Mike nods, but then something comes over his face. He grabs one of the papers on the table and stands up straight.    
  
“We need to go to Will’s house. Now.”    
  
Pan down on the Byers house. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Max ride towards it. The kids stop on their bikes in front of the porch.   
  
“They’re gone already?” Max says, dropping her bike to the ground.   
  
Mike runs across the porch and throws open the door. “WILL? MS. BYERS? JONATHAN?” He goes into what used to be Will’s room and looks around inside. “JOYCE?” No luck. They really were gone. He returns, defeated, outside. His friends wait, concerned.    
  
“They’re gone.”   
  
“I thought they weren’t leaving till next week?”    
  
“They changed plans, clearly,” Mike responds bitterly, picking up his bike from the ground.    
  
“What were you going to tell them?”   
  
“I know where Will is.”   
  
“In the lab...?”   
  
“No. More like, why they took him.”

They all sit on their bikes, ready to leave.   
  
“Why?” Max asks. 

  
“I think he may have powers.”

“What do you mean? Like El does?”

“That’s crazy dude.”

“It’s hard to explain, just-“ Mike pauses. “I’ll explain it on the way back. People could be watching now.” 

  
They nod in agreement. Max, Dustin, and Lucas start pedaling out. Mike makes to follow them.   
  
“Mike?” a voice whispers. It could be El or Will, it’s hard to tell. He turns and looks back at the house, expecting one of them to walk out from the door. They don’t. He rides after his friends.   
  
“We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn starts playing. The shot pulls back from the Byers house and tracks the skyline until it reaches the lab, where it enters a vent and tracks underground, lower and lower.    
  
As Vera Lynn is joined by a chorus of other singers, we see the back of someone’s head as they are lead down a dark hallway by a team of armed guards. They turn the corner into a small cramped room. There is only a chair that one might see in a dentist office and some sort of machine standing in the corner. There is no dialogue, only the music as the person is strapped into the chair and wires are attached to their head. The shot comes to rest just above the person’s head. Dr. Brenner steps in front of the person.   
  
“In time, this will all just feel like a bad dream,” he says. “You’ll forget about all of that stuff from the outside world. And I promise you will have a safe home here. You are going to be one of our most successful subjects yet.” A lab worker inserts a rubber bite down guard into the person’s mouth. “Isn’t that right, Twelve?”   
  
_ “We’ll meet again” _ __  
  
The camera pulls down onto Will Byers’ terrified face.    
  
_ “Don’t know where” _ __  
  
Dr. Brenner nods to another lab worker, who turns on a machine.   
  
_ “Don’t know when” _ __  
  
Will grips the arms of the chair and shakes his head, his breathing heavy. Electricity is pumped through his body.   
  
_ “But I know we’ll meet again some sunny-“ _ __  
  
Will screams.   
  


_ “Day.”  _

  
Blackout. Credits roll.


End file.
